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I'd like to use Git in order to facilitate the development of my userscripts (21). Also, I'd like to have them hosted in GitHub too. (using Greasemonkey with Firefox in windows 10).

So, my question is: what is the suggested way to manage my userscripts using Git, in order to also have them hosted in GitHub?

  • keep a separate folder (e.g. c:\my_scripts which will be my repo folder) containing copies of my userscripts files,
    i.e. each time I change one of my userscript files (located in gm_scripts)
    I'll have to manually copy it from gm_scripts\script_subfolder to my_scripts?

  • have all my user userscripts in the same separate folder (my repo folder),
    and link them to the gm_scripts folder (using mklink -symbolic links- in a .bat file), as I've read in this answer    ?

  • create just one repository containing my gm_scripts content?
    (inside gm_scripts, apart from my 21 userscripts, I've got many other scripts installed, which I'll have to include in my .gitignore file)
  • or is there any better way that I miss?

I've noticed the repos of two authors of many userscripts: @Mottie and @jerone who have their many userscripts hosted in GitHub, yet they follow different approaches:
Mottie's userscripts are all located in the root folder of the repo (just the .js files, there are no subfolders), (screenshot)
while jerone's userscripts are located each in its own subfolder in the repo (screenshot).

My guess is that Mottie has all his userscripts in the same separate folder (which is the repo), and has them linked to the gm_scripts folder,
while jerone either just keeps a separate folder as a repo, with copies of his scripts,
or has his repo containing the gm_scripts folder
(but, jerone's .gitignore doesn't contain entries for those files in gm_folder that should be ignored, such as .db, .wal, .shm, config.xml and such. So, I'm not sure if that's the case).

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darkred
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    I think all three solutions sound valid. I believe the actually solution you use is entirely up to your own opinion about what works better for you. – Code-Apprentice Aug 12 '16 at 18:58
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    I personally put my userscripts up as Gists on gist.github.com. And then I clone each Gist separately, so I actually have a separate Git repository for each user script but I also do not have the overhead of a full GitHub repository for each one. – poke Aug 14 '16 at 16:19
  • @poke: Thanks for offering a different way. It's very practical. – darkred Aug 17 '16 at 11:49

1 Answers1

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I (the user above referred as @jerone) actually have two folders that I keep in sync: GreaseMonkey gm_scripts folder and checked-out repo folder on a different location.

The current folder structure on GitHub is there because I wanted to backup my scripts, just before Userscripts.org when offline. So I just copy-pasted my scripts (with folders) from the gm_scripts folder. Also because I've used some @requires before, keeping them in their corresponding folder.

I've not linked my gm_scripts folder to git because of using git branches for each userscript. The hassle of rebasing branches with the latest master is one reason. Another reason is that you can't work on two feature branches at the same time.

When working on a fix or new feature, I'm of-course working in the gm_scripts folder. When I'm happy with the live userscript changes, I use WinMerge to sync the changes to my checkout repo folder before committing the changes.

The .gitnore file is there, because I used Visual Studio to update the script, but I have changed to Atom long time ago.

darkred
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jerone
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  • Thank you for explaining in details how you use Git with your userscripts. I've postied my userscripts in github (in [this repo](https://github.com/darkred/Userscripts)) following your way, and it'is indeed the most practical. – darkred Aug 17 '16 at 11:48